White Privilege and Education

White privilege has been defined by David Wellman as a system of advantage based on race. It has been compared by Peggy McIntosh to an invisible, weightless knapsack of assets and resources that she was given because she was born White in her time and place in U.S. society. Paula Rothenberg defines White privilege as the other side of discrimination, meaning the opposite of discrimination. This entry reviews the relationship of White privilege to educational access and outcomes in the United States and summarizes some of the work in White privilege being done in U.S. educational systems.

The idea of White privilege came into focus in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, after it had been implicit in many descriptions of race relations but ...